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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29250072">Aftermath</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twobit_scribbles/pseuds/Twobit_scribbles'>Twobit_scribbles</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>D.N. Angel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Can Be Read As Romantic, Crying, Daisuke needs a hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Needs A Hug, Final Chapter Spoilers, Fix-It, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Let. My. Boys. Have. More. Hugs!, Minor Blood Mention, Minor Character Death, Minor Character Death Mention, Minor Injuries, Platonic Relationships, Satoshi needs a hug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 11:28:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,728</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29250072</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twobit_scribbles/pseuds/Twobit_scribbles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for the last chapter of the manga! </p>
<p>Satoshi and Daisuke have had a hell of a day.  </p>
<p>Or: two traumatized teenagers are given a little bit of time to process before the plot catches back up with them. </p>
<p>Written as platonic, but can be read as shippy too~</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hiwatari Satoshi &amp; Niwa Daisuke</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Aftermath</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thank you to Luanna for letting me bounce ideas off her and encouraging me to continue writing and post this! This never would have seen the light of day otherwise!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>White hot pain lancing through his nearly useless right arm, a hand crushed against his own, desperately pressing it against the canvas as an overwhelming magical energy pulses and lashes back against him and the room explodes into a roaring noise and a bright white light and-</em>
</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Awareness returns to him slowly through the fog. Pain is the first to eagerly rush back. His arm throbs fiercely, fire tracing up along the lines of the scars that crisscross his wrist and forearm. Cold, hard concrete pushes against his aching knees and seeps the warmth out of his legs.</p>
<p>It’s quiet here, still. The only sound in the world is the sound of soft breathing somewhere close by. The back of his head echoes empty.</p>
<p>Something heavy and warm is draped across his shoulders and pressed tightly to his side. There’s an itchy spot on his cheek where something sticky is starting to dry and flake. It was probably Kei’s bloo-</p>
<p>A mental door slams shut, years of carefully honed training kicking in to block the emotions rising ugly and tangled in his chest.</p>
<p>He opens his eyes. Blinks for a moment to clear the stars away and process what fills his vision. Canvas. Tightly woven canvas, pure white and untouched. Kokuyoku? That train of thought sputters to a halt, his exhausted brain refusing to keep up.</p>
<p>A small eternity later he works up the energy to turn his head and sees an unmistakable mass of red hair near his shoulder. The Niwa is collapsed against him, head hanging low against his chest.</p>
<p>The Niwa must have felt him move because the arm around his shoulders twitches, and slides further down to stroke a calming hand down his back. <em>Get away, you can’t let people touch you,</em> old instincts scream at him, but it’s surprisingly easy to ignore. Not that he could move if he wanted to. His body is slumped, useless and exhausted, his head is heavy and numb. The Niwa doesn’t speak, just keeps rubbing gentle circles into his back with his thumb.</p>
<p>He doesn’t know how long they sit there, collapsed on the cold floor in silence before he finally registers that something is wrong. The rhythm of the soft, steady breathing beside him has changed, coming quicker and shorter. Here and there a breath hitches and catches for a moment before being released. The Niwa- <em>Daisuke… </em>Daisuke is crying.</p>
<p>Satoshi’s head shoots up before he even finishes processing that information, a stab of fear finally piercing the all-encompassing numbness. Something is <em>wrong</em> and Daisuke is <em>crying</em> and Satoshi-Satoshi has no idea what to do. But the fear is quickly morphing into panic as he desperately searches his mind for an answer, an instinct, something, anything, because Daisuke is <em>crying </em>and something is terribly <em>wrong</em>.</p>
<p>His right arm refuses to move so his left arm twitches, almost involuntarily, before he feels himself lift it. A long buried instinct has finally shaken off the dust and stirred awake, and before he knows it he is reaching out. The panic doubles, spinning faster and faster inside him because he doesn’t reach out, he almost <em>never</em> reaches out because when he does- He waits for the pain to spike behind his eyes, for the burning sensation to crawl its way up his back and <em>tear</em> but-</p>
<p>Nothing comes. His heart is racing in his chest but the back of his head is silent.</p>
<p>Satoshi tries to take a deep breath, fails, and exhales shakily. Before he can think better of it, he continues the aborted movement, raising his arm painfully slowly and reaching out to grab something, anything. His back twists and his knees scream at him for shifting closer and trying to correct the awkward angle but then his fingers are brushing against a warm neck as his hand settles uncertainly in the crook of Daisuke’s shoulder.</p>
<p>Daisuke who suddenly goes still against him. And then very slowly raises his head to look up. Satoshi’s breath catches. Daisuke’s soft red eyes are glossy with the tears that track down his cheeks, his face is flushed, and his mouth hangs open slackly. His jaw works for a moment, like he’s trying to form words or pull his lips into a smile. A hand squeezes around Satoshi’s heart. He opens his mouth to force something out but before he can, Daisuke’s face crumples and he lets out a keening sob as he launches himself at him.</p>
<p>Satoshi freezes on instinct, but Daisuke is not deterred. He almost knocks both of them to the ground in his desperate scramble to get his arms around Satoshi, to grab fistfuls of his shirt and pull him as close as physically possible. He buries his face in Satoshi’s chest, panting warm, wet breaths into the crook of his neck.</p>
<p>The hand Satoshi had on Daisuke’s neck has been awkwardly forced forward so that his entire shoulder is now hooked over the other boy’s. His injured arm is crushed between them and it <em>hurts</em> but he doesn’t dare move. Daisuke is squeezing him like he’s scared that Satoshi will somehow vanish if he doesn’t hold on tightly enough.</p>
<p>No one has <em>ever </em>held him like this before.</p>
<p>Daisuke is saying something now, but between the sobs and a dull roar in his ears, he can’t make it out. The mental door is buckling under the weight of it all; the feeling of his aching body, finally his own again after god knows how much time he’d spent trapped in his own mind, the unspeakable truths that had been revealed to him so suddenly, the warm feeling in his chest that rises almost painfully as Daisuke pulls him impossibly closer.</p>
<p>Without any input from him, his good arm springs into action, latching onto Daisuke with strength he didn’t know he still had left. His eyes are <em>burning</em> and he feels his face twist up as a strangled sob pulls itself from his throat. Nothing he can do can stop this momentum now, and he doesn’t have it in him to even try anymore.</p>
<p>With another choked out cry, his body surrenders to the pull of gravity. All the tension left in him that had kept him frozen upright suddenly releases. He collapses against Daisuke like his strings have been cut, his chin thumping hard against the boy’s shoulder.</p>
<p>Just as Satoshi’s chest feels like it might explode, the mental door finally bursts open and the flood of emotions that surges in overtakes him. He grabs blindly, frantically searching for more support before his hand finds the back of Daisuke’s head and crushes it against him. Fingers catch and tangle into thick hair and pull too hard, but Daisuke doesn’t complain, his arms just squeeze tighter.</p>
<p>Satoshi sobs until his whole body shakes with them, until he can barely breathe around them, until the band of steel around his lungs finally starts to loosen. All he can do is cling to Daisuke like he’s the only thing in the world keeping him from drowning. Pressed tightly against him, Daisuke’s own sobs echo into his chest.</p>
<p>Finally after what seems like an eternity, his body starts to wind down. The flood of tears trickles to a stop. He sniffs around the mucus; he’d almost forgotten how messy crying could actually be. The hand in Daisuke’s hair loosens, and slides down his back as the limb loses its strength.</p>
<p>A strange calm settles over him. It isn’t the same as the numbness of before. Now he’s becoming painfully conscious of everything around him. They’d ended up in a tangle of limbs, there’s nowhere that Satoshi can put his hands where he won’t end up touching Daisuke as well. The salty remains of the tears on his face are irritating the sensitive skin. His dry eyes itch and his throat aches.</p>
<p>He feels wrung out and drained, but strangely lighter somehow. The storm in his head has settled down into a dull background noise. But shame is creeping back in as well, and he feels a blush rise in his cheeks. He was supposed to be <em>comforting</em> Daisuke, not collapsing on him. So <em>weak</em>. All he’s done is shown Daisuke that ugly, embarrassing side of him yet again.</p>
<p>Daisuke is sniffing too. His arms had loosened their death grip a while ago. He carefully retracts one of them and unhooks his chin from Satoshi’s shoulder, pulling back just enough to wedge the arm between them and rub the lingering tears from the corners of his eyes.</p>
<p>Satoshi pulls back as well, scrubs his eyes quickly and efficiently. Waits patiently until Daisuke meets his gaze, willing his face into composure he doesn’t feel. Daisuke looks worn-out. His eyes are puffy and redder than usual, an exhausted ring already starting to line them. He manages a weak smile that doesn’t touch them.</p>
<p>Half of Satoshi wants to apologize, to bury his moment of weakness back behind the walls around his heart. It would be so easy to brush this off as a temporary fluke, an aftereffect of going toe to toe with such a powerful magical artwork. So easy to crush down the fledgling hope sprouting in his chest.</p>
<p>But then Daisuke opens his mouth and with a crooked smile, apologizes to <em>him</em>. For <em>his</em> weakness, for being late, for not being strong enough to help much, and for getting Satoshi’s shirt wet of all things. And yeah, that plan goes out the window.</p>
<p>Satoshi’s sore throat and exhausted mind can’t spit out a counter argument fast enough. Instead, he grabs Daisuke again, pulling him back into the hug and shushing him fiercely. His tongue trips over itself to tell Daisuke exactly how strong, how kind, how brave he is, <em>how dare </em>he call himself weak, honestly the <em>nerve</em>. Daisuke huffs out something resembling a laugh and winds his arms gently around Satoshi’s waist.</p>
<p>And everything falls still again. Not into a deafening silence, but a calm quiet.</p>
<p>They’ll have to move eventually. They’ll have to get up and face the world again. Deal with the fallout of Kei’s death, Dark’s sacrifice, and the magical consequences of such a powerful artwork being sealed. But for now Satoshi sinks back into a warmth he’s been denied for so long.</p>
<p>The rest of the world could wait for them for a few more minutes.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Look I have a LOT of gripes with the ending of the manga, but one of my biggest ones was that there was no recovery time for our heroes, its just smashcuts to scenes after they left the final battle area. And especially Satoshi, Daisuke at the very veeeery least gets to cry post final battle (and not get comfort from anyone, o u c h), but we barely get a glimpse as to whats going on in Satoshi's head after all the big reveals and traumatic stuff that's happened to him in the past few days. These boys have been through A LOT today, let them have like, five minutes of comfort before they have to continue the plot! So anyway, just a minor fix-it bandaid for the majorly messed up ending, but hey, this is self indulgent fanfic and I'm letting the me have everything I want. </p>
<p>Thanks again to Luanna for the pep talks! </p>
<p>Comments and critiques appreciated~</p></blockquote></div></div>
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